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Ask HN: What feature would you want the web to “force” next, after HTTPS?

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221–230 of 279 posts

Re: Ask HN: What feature would you want the web to “force” next, after HTTPS?

#221

Evergreen web browsers. Safari and IE11 continue to ruin my life.

What do you mean by this?

"evergreen" means self-updating, with a rapid release cycle. Chrome, Edge, and Firefox follow this model. IE (essentially a legacy browser at this point) and Safari don't.

Re: Ask HN: What feature would you want the web to “force” next, after HTTPS?

#222
post #164

Ajax without JavaScript. Ability to send a response from server updating only part of DOM. Basically, react with virtual DOM on the server pushing diffs to user with http2 awesomness. There will be no need for JS on most sites, can be adapted to current frameworks, and with preload/prefetch it might be very fast. * U can prefetch progress bar / loading state for example, and redirect to partial url of a real content

You may be interested in intercooler.js ( http://intercoolerjs.org/ ). It allows you to perform a host of AJAX + DOM manipulation flows using only HTML attributes. intercooler also supports something similar to the server pushed DOM diff flow you envision: Server Sent Events BETA ( http://intercoolerjs.org/docs.html#sse ) "Server Sent Events are an HTML5 technology allowing for a server to push content to an HTML cli…

Thats awesome, I was only aware of turbolinks. Sadly, I will never use it for real.

I, like many other, spending some time to ensure server side rendering works, and web site can function without JS. If intercooler were part of browser, and not separate code it will be possible to adapt any SSR ready app to work with this.

Re: Ask HN: What feature would you want the web to “force” next, after HTTPS?

#223

For me, I would go with: - Typed javascript should be built-in in browsers. (Typescript) TypeScript is great, but all the configurations and transpiling is a pain.

I kinda dislike dealing with the configuration too but it's there for a reason; because one size doesn't fit all. Then again, it's not a major pain point for me as long as I stick to the defaults.

And deferring the transpiling to the browser won't really accomplish much, except increase load time for all users.

I'm currently working on a project with ~500KLOC of typescript, and transpiling it takes about 15 seconds on my devbox. It's still a bit too slow for my taste but I don't think there is a technical quick fix for this kind of stuff, rather it's a tale about a project which started small, organically grew larger over time, and would in many ways benefit from a clearer structure with clear dependencies.

Re: Ask HN: What feature would you want the web to “force” next, after HTTPS?

#224
post #164

Ajax without JavaScript. Ability to send a response from server updating only part of DOM. Basically, react with virtual DOM on the server pushing diffs to user with http2 awesomness. There will be no need for JS on most sites, can be adapted to current frameworks, and with preload/prefetch it might be very fast. * U can prefetch progress bar / loading state for example, and redirect to partial url of a real content

Curiously half of what you're describing has already existed on the web for more than 20 years, in the form of server side push using the obscure `multipart/mixed` HTTP content type [1]. This technology was added to Netscape in 1995 and I believe it's still supported by modern browsers, but it seems to have hardly gotten much traction beyond those early webcam sites that an image every N seconds.

I am not sure if interaction is possible as part of the mix using some tricks, though. It seems like we just have turbolinks for that.

[1]: https://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/web2/xhtml/ch13_03.htm

Re: Ask HN: What feature would you want the web to “force” next, after HTTPS?

#225
post #164

Ajax without JavaScript. Ability to send a response from server updating only part of DOM. Basically, react with virtual DOM on the server pushing diffs to user with http2 awesomness. There will be no need for JS on most sites, can be adapted to current frameworks, and with preload/prefetch it might be very fast. * U can prefetch progress bar / loading state for example, and redirect to partial url of a real content

That sounds awesome, but how could you do it without either: - Client sends the entirety of what it has to the server so the server can do the diff - Server sends the entirety of the new page to the client so it can do the diff - Server is constantly keeping track of the last thing that the user looked at so it can send the diff for the next page ?

Assuming: 1. Everything user sees is from server 2. Templates/Views is function of state

Server can generate UI with baked changes to state. URL parameters. Generate html from received state by calling render function of clicked component and send just that components html.

If we had http header for that we can leverage http2 push and replace even components which state were changed as side effect.

React-Redux, Elm, Vuex doing this already. Just bake actions to urls and keep store on server.

Re: Ask HN: What feature would you want the web to “force” next, after HTTPS?

#226
post #224
post #164

Ajax without JavaScript. Ability to send a response from server updating only part of DOM. Basically, react with virtual DOM on the server pushing diffs to user with http2 awesomness. There will be no need for JS on most sites, can be adapted to current frameworks, and with preload/prefetch it might be very fast. * U can prefetch progress bar / loading state for example, and redirect to partial url of a real content

Curiously half of what you're describing has already existed on the web for more than 20 years, in the form of server side push using the obscure `multipart/mixed` HTTP content type [1]. This technology was added to Netscape in 1995 and I believe it's still supported by modern browsers, but it seems to have hardly gotten much traction beyond those early webcam sites that an image every N seconds. I am not sure if int…

Wow! They got a x-mixed-replace. That's totally it. From quick googling - looks like it is not working for html since chrome 36

Edit: It works only with svg and only in Firefox, or am I doing something wrong?

Re: Ask HN: What feature would you want the web to “force” next, after HTTPS?

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you possibly know which fingerprints to trust? Also, do you honestly think there is any hope for the average user to understand what that means and know what to trust and what not to trust? IMO, that is a massive step backwards in usability, which directly impacts the overall security of a given solution. If something is not usable, then people will figure out a way around it and security then goes out the…

Signed archives of trusted or untrusted fingerprints, distributed by various and independent authorities is one option. Trust is, by definition, an extention of solidity or support. CA is a trust model, which has proved both brittle and unworkable. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=trust&allowed_in_fr... Google and other services presently provide extended trust and validity assessments for websites: pinned ce…

DANE perhaps?

http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/resources/dane/

Re: Ask HN: What feature would you want the web to “force” next, after HTTPS?

#228

FIDO U2F hardware authentication token for 2 factor login. Simultaneously easier and more secure than other 2 factor methods. But first someone needs to make a <$5 hardware token so people might actually consider buying one.

YubiKeys are $18. Not $5 but that's in the neighborhood, and they're relatively new. Prices will come down.

$18 is not in the neighborhood of $5. Also I doubt the keychain type can achieve mass adoption, it's the in-USB-port kind that is actually convenient, and those cost $50.

Re: Ask HN: What feature would you want the web to “force” next, after HTTPS?

#229
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Client TLS certs already exist, and they are a massive pain for the average user.

I remember StartCom used client TLS certs, the only place where I ever saw them in use, and the browser workflow was certainly clunky. I'd hate to see a non-techie have to deal with it.

They worked quite smoothly for me. I actually liked StartCom's login process.

Re: Ask HN: What feature would you want the web to “force” next, after HTTPS?

#230

Pay turn off ads. A certain percentage of visitors are asked to rate the content (to avoid paying) the rest of the visitors are automatically billed and pay the average rating. Each user can specify a maximum payment and can opt to view with ads if payment requested is too much.

Ever try ad-block? It's actually free.

How do you pay the people who create content?
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